I mean, amazing, right? What’s going on here is that the figurehead of the Illuminati faction, Kirsten Geary (voiced by Kari Wahlgren), is informing the player of their need to head to Kaidan, Tokyo, the fictional location of the ‘filth bomb’ explosion that sets in motion the reaction of Gaia and events portrayed in Secret World, by way of Venice. So Venice first, then Tokyo, which is a pretty big plot location. But did you catch that part in the middle there?

This is the age of information. Stealth is not about hiding; it’s about inundating.

We leak the truth. Then we leak whole zettabytes of other junk. Opposing data, Similar data. Nonsense data. Ad nauseam. Mesmerism by cat memes. Hypnotised. Apathy for the win.

The human brain has only so much bandwidth. Critical thought can actually O.D. on input. Bury the ultimate secret of the universe in the shallow grave of the 5th page of a Google search and no one would ever find it. Cover-ups are so passé.

This was penned by the incomparable Joshua Alan Doetsch and in a word it’s just… Brilliant. Did you catch these thick layers of meaning that solidly attach this to the real world? What makes the fiction we consume so compelling is how much we relate to it. If we can’t relate to it, we can’t make a connection to it, and it passes right through us. But, this? Who *can’t* relate to this?

Okay, so according to my calculations I should be totally caught up by… 2023.

It just may be that I’m starting to feel the effects of age, but I’m constantly finding it harder and harder to keep up with all of social media. Remember in the early days of Facebook when you could scroll back to the last post you viewed and then catch up quickly with every single thing your friends posted? And I mean every single post? I won’t lie, I’m part of a few Discord channels, as Discord is the new hotness, and I can’t keep up with any of them. I’ve tried. But that’s a LOT of text, most fleeting, and, to quote the above, my brain has only so much bandwidth.

Same goes for Twitter, same for the current version of Facebook, same with Feedly, and the same goes for Discord. There’s just too much. In trying to be as well informed as humanly possible, we hit a staggering wall of data. I remember when I first started getting involved with blogging and keeping up with a whole bunch of blogs and news sites are what helped to keep me informed, but I gave up on reading novels in order to do it. It was the same amount of text and ideas as full-blown novels, but one by multiple authors and multiple topics. I’ve since learned to balance, but still.

After a point we just become satiated. You ever hear or type the same word so much that after a while it stops being a word and just becomes garbled? The world these days just feels… garbled. People are lost, clinging onto what they *hope* is the right information. There is so much out there. From my mother wanting me to read up on hydrolyzed proteins, me trying to figure out what this rash could be from, or the constant stream of world news detailing the horrific events in our current anthropocene extinction epoch. Watching cat videos or seeing pics of bunnies frolicking with a deer end up being truly therapeutic.

“But Ocho,” you may ask. “Aren’t you just adding to the bandwidth?” I am. I totally am. That’s what blogging is all about, after all, adding your individual notes to the constant stream of background noise.

“But… why? Why keep adding to it?” Simply put: Fighting Back. The simple act of creation is sometimes enough to control the tide of information. To coalesce our thoughts and to stake a claim on a thought, to delineate what we know from what we don’t know, and to make a stand for truth.

After all, it’s ‘apathy for the win’, and we can’t just let apathy win without a fight.

Since my last update, I have switched off between two games, Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World. Guild Wars 2 has the ultra tricky Super Adventure Box going on for it, but since acquiring the mini-Moto pet, my goal for the event, my want to log-in has waned in favor of the equivalent of a Secret World Gold Rush.

Now, let’s be clear about this event. It looks very similar to the previous anniversary event, and that is because, well, it is. During the anniversary event, some problems occurred that Funcom simply weren’t able to solve. Namely, one of the rare pets, the Shem of the Lunar Metal, was completely unreachable by at least one of Secret World’s servers (note: my server). No matter how I tried during the anniversary event, I simply could not enter the necessary zone. This isn’t the first time Funcom has fumbled a Secret World event.

So the Gilded Rage event is essentially a make up for the previous Guardians of Gaia Anniversary Event. Hence why it is very similar. The golden Samsu Nasiru is just a gold colored reskin of Kaspu Nasiru, and appears in the same locations as the anniversary Golems. And because the Shem of Lunar Metal was impossible for some to get during the previous event, it was included on the drop list of this event. So high on the list, even, that I picked it up after taking down my very first Golem.

So, cheers to Funcom! They may have fumbled the ball during the Guardians of Gaia Anniversary Event, but have once more picked it up and scored. I remember last time I was very pleased with how they recovered from the End of Days Event fumble, and this looks like a good make-up as well. The only thing missing is that Guardians of Gaia Fusang lore piece… but I was informed that it may still be there. I haven’t been inside Fusang to see if that is true, so maybe I will attempt that tomorrow night and report back.

Tips and Tricks on Hunting Blingzilla

The Gilded Rage event will only be available until… well, they said two weeks after it started. Two weeks would be Friday, September 20th, but ending an event on a Friday (unless they have something BETTER planned for that day) is highly unlikely. Most likely, it will continue until Sunday, September 22nd to cover the weekend crowd. However, attaining all the loot our golden pinata drops is not difficult at all. For one, the coveted prizes, pets, pet pieces, and costume pieces will only drop one time per character and will not be duplicated on that character. So you don’t have to worry about getting repeat pieces of the Gold Pet puzzle.

Join The Illuminati, if for no other reason than the awesome mission text.

– First and foremost: Join the chat channel!

Like the previous event, which showed an outstanding level of community involvement, this event is no different. Once more, unofficial chat channels have been set up, spotters have been sent around TSW’s zones, and when a golem is spotted, the information is relayed back to the channel.

type: /chat join gildedevent

– Friend and Meet Up

Next, when a call-out is made, right click on the callers name and add them as a Friend. Hit Shift-F to bring up the Friends list, right-click on their name and select ‘Meet Up’. Once accepted, this will take you directly to the same zone, dimension, and server as the caller.

– Look For the Giant Walking Hood Ornament

Kinda hard to miss, really. Old Goldy should be hanging out somewhere near the well you zone-in at. Just look around. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

– Beat Up On Goldzilla

He only has two tactics to watch out for:

1) He puts out a self-targeted AoE that, if it hits, will send you skyward and knock you out of the fight for 10 seconds. Run away when he does this as there isn’t any way to interrupt it. It may APPEAR to be interrupted, but that’s most likely just a graphical glitch and it will still hit. If you are susceptible, with no way to block it, just run or stay outside the blast zone.

2) A second AoE that will sap you of health and heal the golem. The health he steals isn’t really enough to keep up with the damage he’s receiving, but it still doesn’t feel nice. To avoid, either run outside the blast zone or “hug” him by getting within melee range. Also, this attack IS interruptible, so if it looks like it’s stopped, it most likely has.

– Profit

After whittling down his 17-18 MILLION hit points, you will receive a Side-Quest (Make sure you have a side-quest spot open before the fight!) to win the Genizah of the Solar Metal prize bag. To form the Shem of Solar Metal pet, however, it will take 6 different body parts, combined together. A list of all possible loot can be found here.

This will kill Spell Effects and will give you a respectable 10-15 FPS on a decent system. To reverse it, just type a 0 where the 4 is.

2) Install Better Buffs, an official fix mod from Funcom’s GUI programmer. It may be included in a future patch, but why not get it now? It will cause your buff lists to not reorder so frequently, and help with interface lag. However, it hasn’t been fully tested, so if it conflicts with another mod or with the game itself, just delete it as per the linked forum post.

– Simple Ground Targeting

I’m placing this here so I have a location to remember it as well. Do you have any Ground Targeted Area of Effects and want to change them to Targeted Area of Effects?

Just hit ‘Shift-Ctrl‘.

That’s it. Now in the heat of combat (or, in this case, the worst Powerpoint presentation ever), you won’t have to worry about targeting your mouse on the right area, it’ll just focus the center of the AoE on your target and you’re good to go.

I can’t help but think, though, that this is just whetting the appetites for the upcoming main event, the prelude to Tokyo. After pushing Lilith back into the Tokyo portal in the last story arc, the siege of Agartha has begun and the Filth has begun to seep into the world’s core.

The question is: When will we be able to fight it?

// Ocho

P.S. – Alright, but I can’t let Funcom off the hook for this one: A $100 Gold Tuxedo?! $100?! Since when is $100 considered a MICRO-transaction?! Look, I’m all for status symbols and understand that people can spend their money however they wish… but $100?! Come on!